I kept my word by having them all three at Leith within a couple of hours, safely lodged in prison. They were afterwards tried by the Leith magistrates, aided by an assessor, and sentenced to sixty days each, with sixty more if they did not give up the money and luggage. The sentence seemed judicious, and in one sense it was; but the worthy bailies did not consider that they were offering a premium on the seductive and depredating energies of the trulls, who (long after the seven pounds was spent) in order to get their birds out of the cage, set about their arts and redeemed them from bondage.
The Cobbler’s Knife.
YOU will have perceived that among my mysteries I have never had anything to do with dreams or dream-mongers. My dreams have been all of that peep-o’-day kind when a man is “wide awake” as they say, and “up to a thing or two.” Not to say that I disbelieve in dreams when they have a streak of sunlight in them, as all veritable ones have. Nor is the strange case I am about to relate free from the suspicion that the dream which preceded a terrible act, was just a daylight feeling reflected from some dark corner of the brain.
In 1835, I met one morning, as I was going to commence the duties of the day, William Wright, shoemaker in Fountain Close. He had been drinking the evening before, for his eyes were red and swollen, and he had the twittering about the tumified top of the cheeks, which shews that the inflammation is getting vent. There was some wildness in his look, and, as it afterwards appeared, something in his talk with a deeper meaning than I could comprehend.
“You have had more than enough last night, William,” said I.
“Why, yes,” replied he, “James and I had a bout, and I am off work for an hour or two till my hand steadies.”
“Better for you and your wife if your hand was always steady,” said I, as I made a movement to walk on.
“Do you believe in dreams?”
“Some,” replied I, meaning the streaked ones I have alluded to. “Why do you put that question?”
“Because,” replied he, “I am quite disturbed this morning by one I had last night. I thought that James Imrie stabbed me with the knife I cut my leather with.”